The maze
by ectocosme
Summary: OS. Cadet Cloud is lost in a maze. He's dying of heat exhaustion, there is monsters lurking around and... other things. Or a thing. A SOLDIER. Cloud might be in trouble.


**The maze - OS**

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The scorching sun made Cloud dizzy. He would have given everything for his helmet right now, even if on a normal day he spent hours cursing the thing which made his hair worse than ever. Now it was mid day and the sun was above him, stealing all shades from the mortal dying under the heat.

Around him: a maze. Wherever he looked at the only thing he could see was tall stems of corn. Kilometres and kilometres of corn. The worse was that they weren't good enough to shade him. Even less if he kept walking, which he should do if he wanted to leave the maze whose top waved with heat.

Cloud hated his squad. He wouldn't hold himself on the kicks in the knees and others retributions when he returned to the base. If he returned.

Still, he kept walking. It was that or waiting for someone to find him. With the squad he had, walking was the better option. Dying from dehydration or heatstroke in a corn field wasn't glorious.

There were still the monsters too. Death by monsters would be less painful for his pride. It wasn't like he could defend himself with his bare hands. Letting him die in the maze was apparently the last resort from his squadmates since he didn't die before.

Sighing, Cloud keep walking with all the energy of a dying chocobo.

He decided he would haunt the fuck out of his squad. At least people would remember him like that. Though, they would be able to name him 'the chocobo ghost'. The thought annoyed Cloud. He sighed from the bottom of his lungs which was a bad idea since his vision blurred a second.

"Got you monster-er!"

Cloud avoided the sword coming at his head. He backed away from it with a yelp, lost his balance and landed on his ass. All of that under the eyes huge with surprise of a SOLDIER First Class. Who was standing still with his sword stopped at the end of his attack. Cloud blinked several times to get ride of the waves in his vision. He recognised the SOLDIER with some seconds of thinking. It was the First always accompanying his idol Sephiroth, a certain Zack Fair.

"A trooper!" the young SOLDIER exclaimed. "A cute trooper! Who is lost."

" 'am not," Cloud answered without thinking twice.

Zack made a disbelieving sound, low in his throat. He didn't believing him yet he said nothing and put back his sword on his back. He offered his hand to Cloud who took it to be polite. Not because he had trouble standing right with the heat going to his head. Nope.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Cloud asked, mouth furred. "Are you lost?"

"No!" Zack exclaimed too fast. "I'm hunting monsters, what else?"

Cloud kept in eyes low to avoid being blinded by the sun.

"You're not wearing boots." Cloud said. He searched the guy with frenzy for a water bottle. In a distant part of his brain, he knew he should drop Zack's hand, call him by his rank and be all formal. Somehow his survival instinct evaporated under the sun and he talked with the SOLDIER without care. "You don't have your materias, or a water bottle."

"Uuuuh... right." Zack dropped his eyes on his feet all dirtied. He wiggled his toes under their eyes then lifted his head. Cloud followed and meet incredible blues eyes. "Are you giving me back my hand?"

Cloud blinked owlishly and dropped his eyes again. On his hand this time. Which was holding Zack's. He let go of it like it was burning his skin. Zack hummed but said nothing for a long moment. He even started rocking back and forth on his heels. Cloud used the time to move the less possible and hope it'll be enough to calm the pounding in his head.

"So," Zack started but didn't say anything more.

Still, Cloud nodded like he understood. He closed his eyes when his vision blurred.

"Looks like someone pulled a prank on you," Zack said.

"Nope, they want me dead."

Zack made a shocked sound. Cloud sighed. He never said anything about the hostility he got from his squadmates, but he was tired, his feet hurt, his head hurt and he would kill a pack of Nibel Wolf for some water. He wasn't controlling what his mouth said.

"Do your squadmates want you dead?" Cloud stammered as he tripped on his own feet. Zack's hold on him kept him upright.

Cloud wasn't sure asking that to a SOLDIER was a good idea. He still talked because the rational part of his mind was moaning in pain and hide deep in his fried brain.

"No!" Zack exclaimed. "I don't have squadmates anymore too. People under my orders, yes." Zack paused. "Do yours _really_ want you dead?"

"Yup, looks like I'm learning too fast and could, possibly, and they might be using that as an excuse, a stupid excuse because let's face it, it's not going to happen because I'm too short and too weak even if I'm doing fine during the drills-"a wave of dizziness hit Cloud. He stopped and took a minute to breath then furrowed his brows. "What was I saying?"

Zack made another low sound in his throat. He put a hand on Cloud's forehead and the trooper looked at it without moving his head. The eye movement made him dizzy.

"Looks like your falling ill, buddy."

"I could have told you that," Cloud mumbled, leaning on the hand helping him stand. SOLDIER where like walls: immovable. Enough to put all your weight against them to stand upward without bothering them. But Zack withdrew his hand from Cloud's forehead making the blond falter and nearly fall on the ground again. Luck kept him standing.

"So why did they want you dead, Spike?"

"They say I could become SOLDIER," Cloud answered, mind barely working. "But it's bullshit, because half the time they say I could _not_! So, uh, yeah."

Cloud looked at Zack, even if the sun was behind the man. At least Zack was shielding him a bit from the blazing sun. Cloud whined when Zack moved a bit. He could say bye bye to his shade. Thought Cloud could finally see Zack's face. Which was a pretty face. The First also smiled. A sweet smile that made Cloud flush. Zack skin was glistening with sweat and even him had a deep blush. He looked _hot_. In both sense of the term.

"What happened to you?" Cloud asked. "I already have a whole squad to kick the asses of, I can kick asses for you too."

Zack chuckled and dropped an arm around Cloud's shoulder making him stumble. They started walking again without a precise direction.

"Aw, you're a sweet one. But don't worry, it was only a prank for me. They dropped me in the maze. But not too far from camp. I could hear them. Except a monster caught my attention and- you know the rest."

Silence fell between them. Zack's arm was too hot against Cloud's shoulders, but he hadn't the strength to shrug him off. Not when he leaned against the man to stand upright.

"Anyway, do you know the way to leave this corn hell?" Zack asked.

"I thought you weren't lost?"

"I might be. Are you?"

"Depend."

Zack grinned, "On what?"

"How you're seeing the situation. You could say I'm mapping an uncharted area."

"You don't have a map."

"Are you saying I couldn't remember the emplacement of each corn here?"

Cloud looked at Zack with what he hoped was a ferocious face, but he knew he looked like a dying frog. A redder and sweatier frog. Yet Zack still squeezed him to his side.

"I like you."

Cloud nodded, brain half-fried, "Me too."

They walked in silence for a bit. The only sound between them being their laborious breathing and the irritating cicadas worsening Cloud's headache. Then Zack sighed deeply and asked: "No seriously, how do we get out from here?"

.

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* * *

it was just me thinking "what if Zack and Cloud met differently?" so yep, here they met in a corn maze


End file.
